Get It Back
by too many stars to count
Summary: This timid walk isn't hers and neither is that trembling voice. Tom took something from Ginny in the Chamber and she intends to get it back. Spans Ginny's 2nd year through the end of the War. Please read and review!


**A/N:** I've wanted to write something like this for ages. When I saw the prompt "ginny - any - _tom riddle scarred ginny's soul when she was eleven. those wounds don't just go away." _I knew I had finally found the place. Please feel free to leave a review!

Get It Back

It takes almost a year before she stops waking up screaming on a weekly basis.

She feels terrible, especially on the mornings when her brothers come down to breakfast bleary eyed and tired. Her screams have been waking more than just mum. Her brothers are unusually understanding though. They do not tease her about the nightmares but instead ask her to referee their Quidditch games and play exploding snap with them. Sometimes she's scared they see her differently, suddenly fragile, and then one of them will tease her about being too small to climb a tree let alone fly a broom and Ginny knows nothing has really changed.

There are nights when she wakes screaming three times or more. On those nights mum takes Ginny downstairs, makes her tea, and teaches her to knit. Over the summer Ginny knits four scarves in the wake of her nightmares.

At this rate everyone's Christmas present will be taken care of by Halloween.

o0o

Going back to school is harder.

She begs her father to teach her silencing charms for her bed and he complies looking so much older than Ginny can ever remember him being.

The Chamber of Secrets may now be common knowledge but who opened them is not. Ginny is silently thankful that no one but her brother, Harry, Hermione and the teachers know.

As it is she can barely face Colin when he sits next to her in charms the first day. He seems unaffected by what happened and talks eagerly about his summer and something called a theme park. Ginny ignores the voice in her head, suspiciously smooth and controlled, saying she doesn't deserve his friendship.

o0o

There are nights when she wakes halfway out of bed, Tom's name on her lips and chicken blood on her mind. It's like a cut that's never managed to scar, always fresh and deep and vulnerable.

On those nights she goes down to the Common Room and curls up by the fire needles clicking away. The idea of going back to bed is laughable, reading impossible, and writing anything, even homework, is unbearable.

She's surprised one night to find Hermione in the Common Room when she comes down seeking refuge.

Hermione is translating something, her runes dictionary open in front of her, but she smiles tiredly at Ginny and beckons her over. "What are you doing up?"

Ginny considers answering and then raises an eyebrow, "I could ask you the same question."

"I don't want to fall behind!" Hermione says looks a tad bit manic. "Besides Ancient Runes is _fascinating_."

"I'm sure." Ginny says dryly.

"Really though, you should be in bed. _I_should be in bed." Hermione adds looking at her watch.

Ginny shrugs. "Couldn't sleep." It's not really a lie, she tells herself.

Hermione will not be fooled. "Nightmare?" She asks quietly. Hesitantly, Ginny nods. "Do you want to talk about it?" Hermione offers putting her quill down.

"No." Ginny says shaking her head. "Here, let me help you." She offers pulling the dictionary towards her and laying yet another scarf on the table. This one is for Ron and blue, because she knows mum's sweater will be maroon and that he hates that color.

Hermiones looks at her for a long moment during which Ginny begs her to let it be before nodding. "I need the rune for "goblin", "marriage", "sea trout" "cart horse" and "war". Ginny stares. "You don't want to know, trust me."

And just like that, Ginny has found a friend.

o0o

Not remembering was bad but this is so much worse.

Tom's gotten hold of her again, he always said he would, and it's like she's a passenger in her own body. She wants to scream, cry, _anything_as she moves through Hogwarts like a ghost taking down person after person.

She killing people, _killing_them and it's every awful promise Tom made come true and it's all her fault.

_"Now, now, Ginerva, don't fight me. If you do you'll wake up one morning to find your brothers dead and their blood on your hands."_

Ginny is standing over bodies, Fred, George, Percy, Ron, Harry, only Hermione is still alive and looking at her with such fear and loathing it hurts and Tom says _"Such a shame you couldn't be a good girl, Ginerva. They may have lived. You brought this upon yourself, you know."_

Ginny wakes up screaming and is thankful her silencing charms are powerful enough to contain any nightmare noises she may make.

Before she really knows what she's doing Ginny is downstairs in the Common Room. It's empty but it's not Hermione she's looking for tonight.

She climbs up the stairs to the Third Year boy's dormitory shaking like a leaf. Against her will she remembers how she was before. This timid walk isn't hers and Ginny doesn't like it. She puts it in her mind as just one more thing Tom Riddle owes her for.

As quietly as she can she opens the door and slips inside. She passes beds; Neville, Harry, _Ron_. Ginny stops at her brother's bed and pulls back the curtain.

"Ron?" She whispers in a voice that trembles - she never talked like this before. "Ron!" He starts awake trying to blink the sleep away.

"Ginny?"

"Ron, can I - " She bites her lip embarrassed. "Can I sleep with you tonight? Please?"

He looks at her and then nods pulling the covers back for her. She slips in and is lying down next to her brother as she remembers. Quickly Ginny casts a silencing charm. Ron's mouth tightens as she does but somehow Ginny knows it's not her that's causing the reaction. He hugs her tightly as she falls asleep.

The silencing charm was a good idea. She wakes up an hour later crying about dead brothers. Ron wakes too and hugs her closer promising her that everyone is fine. Ginny believes him and goes back to bed.

She crawls into his bed to sleep three more times before Christmas break comes.

o0o

Ginny nearly throws up at the end of next year when Harry emerges from the maze clutching Cedric's dead body.

Later that night she hears her parents saying that You-Know-Who is back and she does throw up.

Her mother spends the night in a chair beside Harry's bed and even though she's getting much too big for it, Ginny falls asleep curled in her mother's lap.

She nearly screams when she wakes up in her own bed the next morning _how did I get here? _before realizing mum must have carried her to her dorm.

o0o

Ginny _will not _be a victim a second time around. She throws herself into Dumbledore's Army learning everything Harry teaches them and practicing until she can do the spells in her sleep.

She helps the others when she can but mostly Ginny practices. Those fools at the Ministry can believe what they want, but she will not be caught by surprise. She will fight when the time comes.

And when the time does come it's terrifying and adrenaline fueled. Names that she grew up fearing and hating _Lestrange, Malfoy, Rucorn,_ they're all here right in front of her and this is not the Room of Requirement with mats and cushions to fall back on. This is real and fast and _deadly_.

Ginny looks around once trying to catch at least one more glimpse of Ron when a Death Eater breaks her ankle. She's down in seconds and when her stunner misses and he's advancing on her with a look that sends shivers down her spine, Ginny abandons all magic and punches him in the nose.

She aims more carefully this time and stuns him as he howls clutching at his face. Luna is helping her get out of the way when Sirius falls through the veil. She swallows down the sick threatening to escape her and keeps moving.

Luna has just helped her sit against a wall when she hears it.

It's amazing how fifty years older and warped beyond recognition Ginny knows the voice of the boy in the diary as soon as she hears it. She closes her eyes, covers her ears and tries not to cry. She'll be disgusted with herself later but at the moment it's all she can do.

Tom took something from her when she got that diary. Ginny intends to get it back.

o0o

Ginny knew this was coming.

She and Harry had been happy, honest to Merlin _happy _together.

So of course Voldemort ruins everything.

As Harry tries to explain Ginny thinks that this is just one more thing to add to the laundry list of things Tom has ruined or taken. She intends to be paid in full for them one day.

It strikes Ginny that Harry may never come back from where ever he's going (Hermione won't tell her what's going on but the hints she's been dropping have Ginny horrified) and she wants him to remember her as brave and understanding if they is the last time they see each other.

o0o

6th Year Ginny starts to take Dreamless Sleep. Only once a week, it's one of the most addictive potions to ever be created, but it's enough to keep her sane.

She, Luna, and Neville each drink one on a different night of the week ensuring someone will always be somewhat well rested.

Ginny's not sure she'll survive the school year but she's damn well going to go down fighting.

Tom's voice is ever present in the back of her mind that year. There are ways to get rid of the Carrows it whispers to her as a terrified Fourth Year Slytherin is ordered to torture a First Year. He doesn't have the power or the anger for the curse and soon Goyle is cursing both of them and Ginny's too busy making herself a target to pay any attention to Tom's whispers.

o0o

When Hagrid emerges from the forest with Harry's body limp in his arms Ginny loses it. She's screaming Harry's name and can hear others behind her. Harry is _dead_and this time Tom has taken one too many things from her and her family.

She rushes behind Neville as her friend tells Voldemort exactly what he can do with his offer. Ginny is going to die and she is going to bring every last Death Eater she can down with her. Tom has taken enough.

o0o

He is gone and Ginny breathes freely for the first time in six years.

She passes the chicken coop and sees chicks for once instead of the blood of a rooster on her hands. Mrs. Norris follows Filch as he begins the clean up and Ginny finally stops seeing her frozen in the corridor and hisses back at the cat playfully.

Harry finds her, covered in dirt and blood but _alive_, and they both just hold onto one another for a while. They go to the Great Hall together where Hermione, Ron and the rest of her family sits with George as he mourns.

The score is not even, Tom could never pay off his debts to her and Fred is the biggest debt of all, but she thinks she can learn to live with this imbalance.

o0o

Three days after the War ends Ginny goes to Diagon Alley and buys a journal. It's colorful - not black, not a _chance_ - and has lined pages instead of blank ones, and there will be no "dear" _anything _but this is the closest she's come to a diary since she was 11.

In the kitchen of the Burrow Ginny sits down at the table and writes slowly watching the ink dry on the page _I feel like the wound Tom left on me has finally healed. It's just a scar now._

Finally Ginny has herself back.


End file.
